1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to reducing interrupt density in computer systems, and in particular to reducing the frequency of interrupts received by central processing units from attached peripheral devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Some peripheral devices, such as high speed communications devices, can cause a large number of interrupts in a central processing unit (CPU) of a computer system. Thus, it may be desirable to add intelligence to the peripheral device, for example, so that it only interrupts the CPU after some number of interrupts have been received or a period of time has passed, thereby reducing the interrupt density. For example, an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) communications link receiving 64-byte Protocol Data Units (PDUs) could potentially generate an interrupt about every 1.5 microseconds, or more than 650,000 interrupts per second. Hence, there is a need in the art for a method for reducing interrupt density in computer systems and thus eliminate the overhead normally associated with every interrupt event.